New Generation of Fans Flocks to Woodstock ’94

Twenty-five years after the concert that was like no other, the sons and daughters of the Woodstock Generation swarmed over 800 acres of dusty fields in Upstate New York on Friday, seeking to carve their own niche in the nation’s popular culture.

By the thousands, they descended on the Winston Farm to sway under the sun and stars, build tent villages and cheer a mix of musicians spanning three decades of rock history.

A crowd of 90,000, overwhelmingly young and ready to party but also including veterans of the first Woodstock, surged into the Saugerties site by nightfall, raising the hopes of concert producers who spent $30 million to put on a profitable weekend of music, merchandising and memories.

Promoters predicted that the crowd would swell to over 200,000 by the end of the weekend. By late afternoon, the field was filled with an ocean of fans that seemed to stretch from the stage to the horizon.

The throng arrived in campers and cars, school buses and motorcycles, and staked out space amid a multihued garden of earthly designs. There were crudely fashioned tepees and a high-tech “interactive village,” hot air balloons and a digital newspaper facility.

As the day progressed, the crowd loosened. Some swabbed themselves in mud and stormed up to the stage, parting the crowd as they ran. Others, even musicians on stage, stripped naked. And wafting from the fields, in spite of prohibitions against narcotics, came the pungent aroma of marijuana.

Amid the sprawl stood a psychedelic rainbow-colored Volkswagen van, a ‘60s automotive icon that attracted hundreds of fans posing for snapshots.

“The gods are smiling on us, man,” said the van’s long-haired owned, Rob “the Chicken,” 26, of Orlando, Fla., who sat blissed-out in a tie-dyed shirt as teen-agers marveled at the relic from the Woodstock era.

“The weird colors, the fluorescent stuff, it’s just like from the 60s,” said Bill Lewin, 24, who drove in with friends from New Jersey. “It’s worth all the hassle to get here.”

About 2,000 purists gathered Friday at the shrine of the original Woodstock, the former farm of Max Yasgur in Bethel, N.Y., about 60 miles from here, where an estimated 500,000 fans peacefully camped for three days in 1969. They decried the commercialism of the bigger festival, its tight security and its high cost--$135 a ticket, compared to $18 a ticket 25 years ago.

“It’s manufactured,” said Bob Zeller, 42. “It will never capture the spirit of this place.”

Carpenters, electricians and sound engineers were hastily assembling a small stage for a rival concert, though it was very much a David and Goliath effort. The hope was to attract a smattering of original Woodstock performers.

A teen-ager named Jill, who giggled and said she did not want to give her last name because her parents did not know she was in Bethel, said she regarded the massive Saugerties festival as “the total opposite of what Woodstock was about.”

“I wish I had lived back then,” Jill added. “We don’t have anything cool now.”

Even before the first notes roared out from the Saugerties stage over brightly colored tents and meadows hopefully rendered mosquito-proof, generational comparisons to the Woodstock Music Festival of 1969 abounded.

“We are producing this thing in a fish bowl,” lamented John Roberts, a principal financier of the first concert and who is one of three Woodstock ’94 producers. “The last time was stealth. This time there wasn’t a meeting we had, a strategy session we didn’t read about somewhere in the press.”

The new Woodstock Nation took shape under the restrictions of state laws regulating mass gatherings that were passed after the 1969 concert caused health and traffic problems.

The traffic control plan rivaled a telephone book in thickness. Metal detectors were installed at the entrances to the concert on the Winston Farm. The budget was $30 million. Vendors laid in 100,000 bagels, 120,000 quarts of orange juice, 2 million gallons of water and 234,750 hot dogs. By the time the last rock fan departs on Monday, 700 yellow shuttle buses are predicted to make 32,000 runs.

Yet there were reminders of the original concert. There was the occasional nudity. Some gate-crashers suffered scratches climbing over the 10-foot chain link fence. Low gray clouds threatened rain. Despite the metal detectors and bag searches, and a massive security force who wore colored T-shirts proclaiming “peace patrol,” liquor and dope were evident.

“It all depends on how tough they want to be,” said Chris Urello, 21, of Norwich, Conn. “Some searches are pretty tough and some people don’t even put their hands in the bags. And if they’re girls and they’re pretty, they really get it easy.”

Not far from the section of cyclone fence Urello guarded, a quintet of German university students sat cross legged in a makeshift tent city and passed around a fat marijuana cigarette. The students said they smuggled in a small cache hidden in a contraceptive.

“You come to Woodstock, you have to smoke, yes?” said Thorsten Granden, 25, a deeply tanned business manager, as he listened to the succession of bands.

Woodstock ’94 at Saugerties began with a series of local bands, ranging in tone from aggressive alternative rock to country music. The played on the massive stage where performers ranging from Woodstock alumni Joe Cocker and Crosby Stills & Nash will join contemporary favorites today and Sunday such as Metallica, Nine Inch Nails and the Red Hot Chili Peppers in entertaining the audience.

“It’s expensive, but it’s a blast. Everyone around here is so peaceful,” said Jamie Cronkwright, 19, from Rochester, N.Y. who drove to the site with his friend, Greg Vasilovski, 18.

But some of the young bands playing Friday said they were uneasy with the current festival’s commercialism.

“I feel great to be here and have this opportunity for our music to be heard by so many people, but I don’t like all the marketing and merchandising and tight security,” said Swayzak, 24, a member of the Goats, an alternative rap group from Philadelphia.

A few hours later on stage, another contemporary group, Blues Traveler, brought the crowd alive by saluting the most famous musical moment of the first Woodstock. John Popper did a harmonica solo of the “The Star-Spangled Banner” that recalled the dramatic shading of the late guitarist Jimi Hendrix.

John Scher, president of PolyGram Diversified Ventures, the international entertainment conglomerate that is the primary backer of Woodstock ‘94, said 75,000 people were already in place when the first notes sounded shortly after 11 a.m.

In strongest terms, he sought to blunt all the criticism of commercialism. Scher said he was “sick and tired” of all the “unfair” media attacks on Woodstock ’94 and charged the media have taken some “cheap shots.”

“This is Woodstock in every sense of the word,” he insisted.

Times staff writers Robert Hilburn and Jeff Leeds contributed to this story.

Woodstock, the Sequel

Facts about the Woodstock ’94 festival, which runs through the weekend:

Among today’s performers: Joe Cocker; Melissa Etheridge; Crosby, Stills and Nash; Nine Inch Nails; Metallica; Aerosmith; The Cranberries; Salt N’ Pepa.

Schedule: First act begins at 12:15 p.m. EDT. Last act begins at 12:15 a.m. EDT.

TV: Pay Per View begins at noon today. Cost is $34.95 for one day and $49.95 for both days. MTV will also have reports from the site.